Smart Panel? More Like Dumb Panel
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ก.ค. 2024
- A smart electrical panel like the Leviton sounds like a good idea, especially when you're installing a solar system with battery backup. But as we've learned a smart panel is more trouble than it's worth, and the extra little bells and whistles are more a sales gimmick than a practical feature.
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Just signed a contract to get SPAN installed along with solar+storage on a new construction house. I'm a data nerd and care deeply about the energy usage of circuit-level monitoring. Definitely not for everyone, and definitely less useful if there is absolutely no care whatsoever about circuit placement/design. If the assumption, like you said, is that you don't care about circuit level monitoring, then I can see why you wouldn't recommend the product. But people have different priorities. In a grid outage, I DEFINITELY care about where my kWh are going.
We are building a 100% solar, off-grid home and I keep trying to talk myself into a smart panel but they all seem to be focused on grid-tied homes with battery back-up, enabling them to turn off specific items in a back-up situation, to minimize battery draw. But I'm totally off-grid and will either be running directly off the PVs (via the inverter) or off the batteries. This video helped me realize I'm not just some luddite. I don't need a smart panel, I just need to wash and dry clothes when the sun is shining.
I went with the Leviton panel and smart breakers to notify me of a breaker trip on the dedicated refrigerator/freezer circuits and the koi pond at my elderly mother's house. The rest of the panel is dumb breakers. The panel and dumb breakers cost on par with other manufacturers but for a few bucks more I added smart breakers to these circuits to save the food and fish in case of an outage.
I use monitoring for only two connections: the mains, and the sub panel feed to a rental unit. This allows me to split the power bill with the tenant (I use older, single-circuit utility grade Leviton passive sensors for this). Outside of that need, I would tend to agree: circuit level monitoring for the entire site is a bit much, especially for the high price tag. I am working out my battery backup control, transfer switch, etc and decided that the simplest solution is to just back up 120V lights and outlets, leave off 240V items. We have a hot plate and a kettle: no need for the high wattage devices to go undisputed. As long as the fridge and lights work, we're good.
The value of a Smart Panel is for long term outage and multiple energy solutions for your home. SPAN currently supports solar, battery, grid and generator connections. So if you have a week long power outage, you can manage your sun down battery consumption automatically, but also manually change as you see fit. Plus once wind energy becomes more prevalent, that can be tied in as well with a simple software upgrade. People taught automatic and intermittent windshield wipers were unnecessary in the beginning as well.
Smart panels are the future to me. Yes I know there are current products but honestly I think there needs to be more uniform standards that protect homeowners from companies that either get acquired or go out of business. There needs to be assurances that a majority of the functionality is controlled locally. I think the devices must expand to cover two stud bays or more because smart homes of the future will have more organized mechanical rooms and homerun electrical and lighting. The lighting will move to DC, the HVAC systems will move to Heat Pump compressor and even plumbing may be homerun to a manifold.
3:40, I feel like you are talking about installing these in Trap Houses 😅
Hmmm. They must not fit in with your marketing priorities...
I'm not understanding your statement?
I agree with you, this company LOVES Enphase, which is currently not supported by SPAN. I like Enphase, so hoping SPAN will finally be done with their R&D with Enphase, so I can get a SPAN and Enphase system. I really don’t want Solaredge or Tesla, which are currently the only full Solar/Battery systems SPAN supports.
His whole review and point went way over your head. Yeah stick to having stuff installed for you since you have no clue what runs the technology. It’s not about what he is marketing it’s him helping others out. People don’t have multiple chances to spend massive amounts of money.
@@cr1m203 now I'm confused th-cam.com/video/ApCBy7FIcEs/w-d-xo.html
What are your thoughts on the Lumin panel. Seems like it may address some of the concerns you have with Span in that it doesn’t replace your panel but simply integrates with it.
You should check out the Savant Power system.
Just had an Enphase power system installed last month (46, 400W solar panels and 4, Enphase 10kW batteries). I was not aware of the Enphase Load Controller prior to installation and our entire power system is connected to a "legacy" fuse panel, i.e., NOT a smart panel. Can the Enphase Load Controller be installed afterwards? Does anyone know how many circuits can I select to "de-energize" during a power outage using the Enphase Enlighten Load Control APP? Has anyone done this before?
You can add the load controller after the fact it can only control 4 circuits.
What also got me to rethink Smart Panels is they're computers behind the scenes with components such as a motherboard. My original house panel is 60 years old! Do you really want to upgrade your motherboard or yet alone the entire panel every few year, or even every 10 or 20 years because the computer is outdated or the motherboard fried??? And the hardware is nothing without software. And how do software companies survive? Subscriptions! Do you want to eventually pay a subscription to keep your panel live and keep the lights on???
Wouldn't an added benefit of the Smart Panel be pointing out anomalies? I feel like that's a big reason to get it. It'll point out things left on, or things running that shouldn't be running, or a refrigerator drawing too much electricity, etc.
So you can't use standard breakers in a Levitron smart panel? Not a good idea.
My take away from this video is towards the end. I don’t need a $4500 smart panel. If I have to monitor my loads on based on usage I might as well go back the old school way. Correct wiring, correct system for your needs is just that. Playing guess work and what circuits to run during an outage is so old school. My goal is to duplicate the grid during an outage. You also mentioned software another thing people don’t understand and I have yet to fully trust my whole house running off software alone. I rather the good old load center with modern external technologies to give me the best of both worlds.
Leviton has a pretty nice smart panel that cost about a third of the Span panel and that's with the breakers included, unlike the Span panel. Also, Square D has a smart panel coming out called the Energy Center which is also about half the cost of the Span. The only thing is neither product integrates the data from the solar and batteries like Span can with the Tesla Powerwall or SolarEdge Energy Bank.
man, those audio effect overlays are terrible.
The information in this video regarding the Leviton Smart Circuit Breakers is entirely incorrect. These breakers cannot be turned on and off remotely. They can be tripped remotely but must be reset manually. Consequently, they cannot be used as a method of controlling individual circuits and there is no reason to wire your home differently than any other home. I do not disagree with your conclusion that they add minimal value to a solar installation but do find it a very compelling option for new home construction (a premium product at a premium price point).
Thanks for your perspective here. I'm also doing a new construction most likely with Enphase solar a a single battery. Since its new I have the ability to work with the builder to make sure circuits aren't haphazardly run. I'm with you on the not really caring about most of the circuit level detail. On the other hand I view the big advantage to Enphase is having the solar and battery both available when the grid is down giving you close to whole home backup but then reverting to home essential backup as you move into nighttime or loose sunshine. Perhaps the price of a smart panel isn't too out of line with the cost of multiple batteries.
I was also thinking about the Control 4 integration as a form of load control where the grid down status or additional detail on the solar and battery status could start to reduce the the consumption in the house. Too bad the interoperability of these systems isn't where it should be to fully maximize the utility of these systems.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that with a 12kW battery and 15kW solar system the odds of me experiencing a power outage while I'm above this threshold is pretty slim. And if that is what happens I will have the inconvenience of losing power due to overload for a minute until I shut down the high consumer, likely my EV charger, dryer, or oven, and restart the system. In any other times I can just turn off the breakers by hand and control my loads as I need to see fit. Thanks for your insight, it reinforced what I was already contemplating.
I can shut off individual breakers by just walking over to the panel and shutting them off! I can also put in a lock switch, to power my whole house by flipping off the main power and then flipping on my solar breakers! The cost is minimal.
Why in the world would you spend so much money if you don’t need too? I’d rather spend the money on more batteries or solar panels!